Mad Bomber Melville (i)
from Leslie James Pickering of the Earth Liberation Front
“Viet Nam in Manhattan?” The United Nations headquarters stand on the island of Manhattan but not in the borough of Manhattan, the city or state of New York, or within the United States of America.
Even if they did, the United Nations did not seat either the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam or the Republic of Viet Nam during Sam Melville’s lifetime. There were persons of Vietnamese family and name, speaking the majority language, in and out of Manhattan, over those years.
Who knows, maybe there was a restaurant, displaying a clock on the outline of the nation, and women in the three regional styles of ao dai and a fourth to represent the minorities. There were Vietnamese-language books in libraries and personal collections.
Maybe a consul or trade mission from the embassy in Washington, DC. Perhaps an account manager lunching and napping at some public relations outfit no one ever heard of because who needs the support of the American people? But Viet Nam in Manhattan?
No. It wasn’t like Paris. Oh, the war. Right. We are talking about a revolutionary bomber. Look, neither Viet Nam had a thing to do with Sam Melville. Just no. None of them ever brought the war to any part of the USA.
If by Viet Nam we mean rather a sense of resistance against the USA, well sure. I was 9 years old in 1969. Fully sentient since 1965. Over those years one president had ramped up the war, then withdrew from office, and another had come to office with a promise to end it.
Richard Nixon was a mad bomber himself. He referred to himself in those very words. It was not a quip to a journalist in an unguarded moment but a reasoned strategy as a career man of state. He had first argued for the nuclear bombing of Viet Nam in the Eisenhower administration.
That last was not common knowledge in 1969. And of course no one, even Dick, knew for sure that his secret plan was to double both the butcher’s bill and the years of the United States occupation of Cambodia, Laos, and Viet Nam then betray them all to the People’s Republic of China.
We did know things looked dark.
Someone had to do something. Many of us did. Arlo Guthrie already had composed, performed, and made a movie of the song about his failed induction at Whitehall Street. All you had to do to join the Anti-Massacree Movement was sing the chorus.
Sam Melville instead blew the place apart. The bombings explained in the two photographs just above attacked directly first the United States Army and then the Selective Service.
They succeeded in tactical purpose. They slowed down the war machine, as many others did in actions around the country, armed and otherwise. These were not symbolic actions for the newspapers, or acts of terror against the people.
And, as I say, they had nothing to do with either Viet Nam. If you don’t understand that you will miss everything Leslie James Pickering’s book or these Viet Nam letters have to tell you.